Blog: Biz Buzz

Winefest will have two presenting sponsors in 2014 for the first time in the event’s 12-year history.
Gateway Market and West Bank will co-sponsor the May 31-June 7 festival and all 2014 events. Each will contribute $25,000.
Splitting the lead sponsorship made it financially viable for the two local companies to support ...

The World Food Prize Foundation has named its first vice president, Mashal Husain.
Husain, 42, has been the foundation’s director of development and finance since September 2008. Her accomplishments include overseeing the $30 million renovation of the historic Des Moines Public Library into the Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Hall of Laureates.
In ...

KCCI swept every time period this November, Nielsen ratings released today show.
In November 2012, WHO-TV scored a big victory in the ratings by winning the 6 p.m. newscast for the first time in years. But not this year.
Among all households, KCCI scored a 36 share at 6 p.m. vs. WHO’s ...

KCWI “Great Day” co-host Jackie Schmillen “nailed” the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo, according to a column in the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The favorable review came not from a music reviewer, but from the Review Journal’s sports columnist. Never mind, Ron Kantowski is apparently a student of the ...

The global food system is like the Titanic, warned a speaker at the National Conference for Women in Sustainable Agriculture in Des Moines.
It’s immense, a marvel of engineering, “and it’s racing to its destruction,” said Danielle Nierenberg, the Chicago-based co-founder of Food Tank, a “food think tank .”
Nierenberg recently spent ...

Jackie Schmillen knows how to please a crowd — on TV or at the rodeo.
The co-host of KCWI-TV’s “Great Day” is a finalist in the Wrangler NFR (National Finals Rodeo) National Anthem Contest. She was nominated by the Dayton Rodeo, where she performed. She was chosen as one of four ...

UnityPoint Health is spreading into Wisconsin.
The company, formerly known as Iowa Health System, is adding Madison-based Meriter Health Services to its rolls.
With the addition of Meriter, UnityPoint will have hospital and clinic systems in nine metro areas, including seven in Iowa. When asked if UnityPoint would pursue other Wisconsin hospital ...

Iowa Realty has sued Keller Williams, alleging that its competitor has engaged in a public relations campaign to damage the reputation of Iowa’s largest real estate agency.
The lawsuit, filed in Polk County District Court on Thursday, comes about five weeks after Keller Williams dropped a lawsuit against Iowa Realty. Keller ...

KCCI’s top executive plans to retire this year after 27 years as president and general manager of central Iowa’s top-rated station.
Paul Fredericksen joined KCCI, then known as KRNT, as business manager in 1973, and he was promoted to the top position of the CBS affiliate in 1986.
KCCI said a successor ...